Anti-Pitchfork

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

The veteran producer brings his murky drones and brutal breakbeats to the London-based label.

Christoph de Babalon will make his debut on Alter with a new four-track EP Hectic Shakes, which will arrive early next year.

The EP revisits the frenetic breakcore and dark ambience with which the producer made his name on labels such as Digital Hardcore and Fat Cat Records, and references the “eerie in-between spaces of vintage Unit Moebius or Deutsch Nepal.”

Christoph de Babalon broke onto the scene with his 1997 cult album If You’re Into It, I’m Out Of It, and has since released a steady stream of projects on Digital Hardcore, Fat Cat, V I S and his own label Cross Fader Enter Trainment.

Hectic Shakes arrives on January 18, 2019, and is available to preorder now. Check out the cover art and tracklist below.

With so many young up-and-coming singer/songwriters in the Pop/Alternative world nowadays, it takes real genuine talent to stand out amongst the crowd and have the music world take notice. But that was just the case for Angelo David, who at only 16 has been writing and producing dynamic new tracks that brought him to performing for sold-out crowds and catch the ear of Britney Spears’ music Director Marc Delcore in 2013. Now with an EP and multiple singles under his belt including his latest “This Place” and the soon-to-be-released “The Inside”, he’s continuing to write and produce hot new tracks.

With a unique ability to convert his personal experiences to powerful lyrics and catchy musical transitions - singer/songwriter, producer, and keyboard player Angelo David began writing socially conscious songs at only 8 yrs old in his native Boston, MA.

The Britney Spears’ Las Vegas band backed Angelo at the Topsfield Fair in 2013 and he performed at Webster Hall in New York City in 2015. In September of 2017, Angelo headlined the Hard Rock stage in Boston to a sold out crowd. Over the past five years, Angelo has performed at festivals, charity events, and award shows.

Angelo released his first EP in 2013, along with his first music videos, “House Is Burning Down” (a song about being bullied) and “Mirror” (an introspection). On June 8, 2013, “House is Burning Down” trended at #4 worldwide on YouTube as one of the most popular music videos around the web. Catching the ear of Marc Delcore, music director for Britney Spears, Delcore offered to produce Angelo’s next single, “Heard it at Sunset,” a moving song about the Boston Marathon bombing. The song and video were released at the one-year anniversary of the bombing with all proceeds to benefit the One Fund.

His musical and acting talents have also been recognized by film festivals internationally. In 2014, “Heard it at Sunset” won Best Music Video at the Long Beach Indie International Film Festival and “Mirror” won Best Music Video at the Indian Cine Film Festival in Mumbai, India. In 2015, Angelo’s music video “Lonely” won Best Music Video at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival.

In 2017, Angelo was asked to write a song about togetherness for the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s Foundation, a nonprofit organization to benefit unemployed coal miner families in Kentucky and West Virginia who are struggling with depression and opioid addiction. He’s also been interviewed by NBC-10 TV, WSVN-TV Miami, Dirty Water TV, WBZ radio, the Boston Globe, GoodMusicAllDay, One Magazine, and other publications.

While he frequently continues to release new singles, including the upcoming “The Inside”, it’s certain that Angelo David is a rising talent that will continue to take the Pop Music world by storm!

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets — the Pink Floyd drummer’s new group who perform music from Syd Barrett-era albums The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and A Saucerful of Secrets — have expanded their first-ever North American tour, adding second LA and NYC shows, as well as a Philly show. The first LA and NYC shows have sold out.

The second LA show happens March 17 at The Wiltern, the second NYC show happens April 19 at Beacon Theatre, and the Philly show happens April 20 at The Met. Tickets go on sale Friday (11/16) at 10 AM PST, 10 AM EST, and 9 AM EST, respectively, with presales starting Wednesday (11/14) at 10 AM local time.

Mason’s band also includes Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp, Lee Harris of Ian Dury & the Blockheads, composer Dom Beken (who frequently collaborated with Floyd keyboardist Rick Wright) and Guy Pratt, who became Floyd’s bass player in the post-Waters era.

Monday, November 12, 2018

Chicago rapper CupcakKe has dropped a new album, Eden, which is available to stream and download now. The LP follows the exceptional Ephorize. Earlier this year she released the singles ‘Quiz’ and ‘Blackjack’.

Friday, November 9, 2018

In late May, 1968, the Beatles convened at guitarist George Harrison’s English country home with an extraordinary body of raw materials for their next album. The so-called “Esher demos” — 27 songs taped on Harrison’s four-track machine — were at once stark and full, solo acoustic blueprints already outfitted with signature flourishes: double-tracked vocals; John Lennon’s raindrop-arpeggio guitar in “Dear Prudence”; the future guitar solo in “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” hummed by Paul McCartney.

There was evidence too of tension and estrangement: Lennon’s jagged rhythms and aggressive cynicism (“Revolution,” “Yer Blues”); McCartney’s determined optimism (“Blackbird”) and almost mutinous cheer (“Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”). In his Appalachian-ballad draft of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” Harrison pointedly censured his bandmates, singing “The problems you sow are the troubles you’re reaping.” He dropped the line in the final version. His dismay in the song remained.

Those recordings, issued in full for the first time, are the dominant revelation in the 50th-anniversary expansion of The Beatles. At 30 tracks on two LPs and dubbed “The White Album” for its blank-canvas sleeve, it was the group’s longest, most eclectic and emotionally blunt record – an admission of frayed nerves and strained bonds in the zigzag of garage-roots rock, delicate balladry, proto-metal fury, country ham and radical experiment. The “Super Deluxe” edition of The Beatles has even more. In addition to the demos and a new remix of the album overseen by Giles Martin, son of the late producer George Martin, there are 50 tracks of the work in progress – outtakes and sketches; roads not taken and songs left behind – across the summer and fall of 1968.

But the Esher tapes are a profound record in themselves. There are rough lyrics and missing parts; Lennon’s “Glass Onion” is just one, repeated verse. But this is an unprecedented view of the Beatles at the ground zero of songwriting as well as the trials and conflict that charged that bounty: the death of manager Brian Epstein in 1967; the chaotic launch of Apple Corps.; the disappointment of the Beatles’ recent trip to India. Lennon takes his swipe at the Maharishi (“Sexy Sadie”); he is also exhausted to the point of begging (“I’m So Tired”). McCartney finds relief in corn (“Honey Pie”). Harrison is coming up strong but frustrated. His Esher songs “Circles” and “Not Guilty” have to wait for solo albums.

The outtakes vary in impact. A 12-minute “Helter Skelter” is not the noise fest I hoped but a solid groove, McCartney leading a blues-jam Beatles. The minute differences in Lennon’s two takes of longing for his mother, “Julia,” are telling; his vocal falls more naturally over the guitar in the second pass. An alternate down-home “Good Night” is a marvelous shock, Ringo Starr’s homely vocal gilded with earthy harmonies closer to the Band, moving in Byrds-like formation. And do not fear for the original album: Giles’ remix adds depth and detail without betraying the ’68 balance as in the new, striking contrast between the doldrums and tumult in Harrison’s “Long, Long, Long.”

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds have debuted the lyric video for ‘Alone On The Rope’, and it’s a suitably psychedelic affair.

The track is the B-side to their latest single ‘If Love Is The Law’. It’s one of the most laid back offerings from Gallagher to date, and sees his crooning vocals paired with subdued pianos and drums that wouldn’t sound entirely out of place in a late night jazz bar.

As for the lyric video, we see a series of different skyscapes across the world, which are presented in a kaleidoscope-like view that constantly changes between different cities.

It comes almost a year since the release of ‘Who Built The Moon’, which marked Gallagher’s third solo record and arguably his most acclaimed to date.

“It’s hardly Oneohtrix Point Never but, for Noel, NGHFB’s third album ‘Who Built The Moon?’ marks a grand sonic expansion”, NME wrote in a four star review.

“First single ‘Holy Mountain’ set the retro-revisionist tone – the sound of glam-era Bowie, The Vaccines, Showaddywaddy and Ricky Martin all marching to Jona Lewie’s tin whistle – and its excitable, life-loving spirit infects Noel’s best album since ‘…Morning Glory’.”

Last week, Gallagher also released Any Road Will Get Us There (If We Don’t Know Where We’re Going), a photo book which tells the behind-the-scenes story of Noel’s biggest ever world tour this year with The High Flying Birds.

For Long Island ska/reggae/rock fans who grew up blasting the music of Sublime as they drove along the coastal shores chasing the sunshine, it’s of no surprise the recent announcement that cinematic/music/skate collective Raised Fist Propaganda will present LAW live in Long Beach for the first time ever is stirring up excitement. Fronted by the son of late Sublime frontman Bradley Nowell, Jakob Nowell will bring his recently transformed ska-punk turned “no nonsense rock” band to Junction (20 W Park Ave Ste A, Long Beach, NY 11561) on Friday, November 30th at 9:00PM with support by The Zebulonites, Edjacted Phools, and Rick Eberle!

LAW - the newly focused rock band based out of Los Angeles County, CA was founded in 2013 in Long Beach, CA. The band consists of Jakob Nowell (Vocalist), Nick Aguilar (Drummer), Aidan Palacios (Guitarist), and Logun Spellacy (Bassist). The band is currently based out of LA County and has been playing regular shows since 2013. While currently writing new music and seeking to spread their message through straightforward, to-the-point, no-nonsense rock music - their style consists of a heavy emphasis on loud, live sound with thunderous basslines, sonorous solos, furious drums and wailing vocals.

Having begun with drummer Nicholas Aguilar and bassist Dakota Ethridge in Long Beach in 2013 when Nowell was still a teen, the band first performed ska-punk in the tradition of Nowell's father. Palacios joined on lead guitar in early 2015, followed the next year by Spellacy after Ethridge’s exit. Having recorded their debut release “Mild Lawtism” via Skunk Records, the 8 song EP was then followed by “Toxic” in 2016 - both focused on the ska/reggae/punk sound the band had been so deeply influenced by, noteably drawing “Sublime” comparisons. The ladder would be a “final goodbye to the stylistic choices of their past” as they sought to “bury the hatchet so to speak with that style”.

Currently in the process of recording their new and unheard songs to debut their true style in a full length release, “There and Back Again” is said to be making its debut later this year. Their sound now is an experimental mix of Queens of the Stone Age, Alice in Chains and Red Hot Chili Peppers. The band is playing many shows every weekend and is seeking to expand. The band has a heavy emphasis on live sound and would ask the listener to come out to a show near them to judge for themselves.

And now those NY listeners can judge for themselves as LAW comes to Junction in Long Beach with The Zebulonites, Edjacted Phools, and Rick Eberle on Friday, November 30th at 9:00PM!

Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Imagine a wanderer, and you'll probably conjure images of an aimless solo traveller, trudging along a dusty, sun-beaten track, guitar slung over one shoulder; it's a word synonymous with rootlessness, with the rejection of a fixed home, certainty and structure. For Chan Marshall, aka Cat Power, her tenth studio album is an exercise in paying "reverence to the people who did this generations before me. Folk singers, blues singers, and everything in between."And Marshall, the daughter of a blues musician whose profession required regular relocation throughout her childhood in the south, really has lived this life. In adulthood, more than 25 years of writing, recording, producing, and touring music hasn't made for a stable or predictable lifestyle, either, and Marshall's erratic on and off-stage behaviour has received plenty of scrutiny over the years. It has seemed as though uncertainty itself has been the only constant—even something she has courted, or needed.Marshall's musical output has seen her morph from experimental folk to indie rock to upbeat electronica, all underpinned by her signature blues and soul influence, lyrical vulnerability, and reliably high quality. Her last album, 2012's Sun, was Marshall's biggest mainstream success to date, not that you could really label much of her work as inaccessible in the grand scheme of things.But evidently Wanderer presented too big a problem or risk—too light on "hits," maybe, or too sparsely and acoustically orchestrated—for her label of 20 years, Matador, and this release comes instead courtesy of Domino. Self-written (bar one cover) and self-produced, and many years in the making, Wanderer as a rejected record could have become a crisis or a millstone.Yet it's supremely confident and calm. Go on just its title and press pack and you'll be steeling yourself for an album of unanswered questions and indecision—but you won't find those here. Rather, it's a reflection of her "journey so far," told from a position of conviction, balance, and autonomy. As she sings on "You Get," "there's nothing like time to teach you where you have been."The a cappella opener "Wanderer" channels a troubadour singing for their board and lodging. It's strong but ethereal, and there's something moving in the fact that Marshall's fellow singers on this track are many layers of her—the sense of triumphant togetherness gently undermined once you listen closely enough. "In Your Face" might as well be a letter directly to President Donald Trump, albeit the most beautiful and intricately arranged hate mail he'd ever be lucky enough to receive. Over a barely—there bossanova beat and infrequent piano arabesques, Marshall mocks his flamboyance—"In the age of the military/You are engaged in fanfare activity"—and the disconnect between him and the people: "You feel so above the hunger on the streets/With your safe and your document in its place/Your money, your gun/Your conscience sweet like honey.""Woman," her duet with recent tour-mate and friend Lana Del Rey has already racked up 3.4 million YouTube views, and is dripping with empowerment and female solidarity. It's lyrically pure sass—"Taking the charge/I took the lead...I'm a woman of my word/Now haven't you heard?/My word's the only thing I've ever needed"—while vocally they intertwine in playful call and response, and mesh in subtle harmonies."Stay" is a glorious version of a Rihanna song, and is a reminder of Marshall's incredible gift for reimagining and interpretation—she's made two whole albums of covers, after all. This takes the directness of the original and hacks apart the structure, toys with the time signature, and adds a layer of softness and naivety that make perfect sense. "Nothing Really Matters" is about feeling judged for living your life in a way that others don't agree with—but it's far from hopeless. When she asks, "How can other people's ways/Be an estimate of your way of life?/Can't the words and birds and trees and earth/Be the same thing and be just as right?," she's sad for those who can't adjust their expectations, who can't think differently. But she feels no need to bend to them. Instead, she watches from a distance: "It's like nothing really matters to them."It's fitting that the final track should have a title as unequivocal as "Wanderer/Exit." This is a record with gentleness and vulnerability in abundance, but it's carefully crafted—it knows itself, and it knows when it's finished. Underneath the video for "Wanderer," the top comment reads simply "The Queen Returns..." Famously, when it comes to her die-hard fans, she can do no wrong. And this album is very, very right.